The Golden Age Trump Economy

The Golden Age is already here!

Rising electric bills

Household electricity bills have increased by 10% since Donald Trump re-entered the White House, a new report has found, with its authors highlighting the impact of the president’s datacenter boosterism and cuts to clean energy projects as part of the cause. [snip]

...[S]tudies have found that Trump’s pro-fossil fuel, anti-renewable energy policies will raise prices. A July report from climate thinktank Energy Innovation, for instance, found that the Republicans’ spending megabill that the president signed last month could increase wholesale electricity prices by as much as 74%, largely due to its repeal of many Biden-era green energy incentives.

According to the new report from advocacy group Climate Power, which is based on an analysis of data from the US Energy Information Administration, those price increases are already beginning to take hold.

“Republicans are fueling an energy crisis and inflicting a massive utility bill hike on Americans across the country,” said Climate Power senior adviser Jesse Lee. “This is nothing short of a betrayal of their own voters. Families are losing jobs while their bills climb, all because Republicans would rather protect their donors than lower costs.”...

Trump's tariffs...

The U.S. Commerce Department said on Tuesday it is hiking steel and aluminum tariffs on more than 400 products including wind turbines, mobile cranes, appliances, bulldozers and other heavy equipment, along with railcars, motorcycles, marine engines, furniture and hundreds of other products.

The department said 407 product categories are being added to the list of “derivative” steel and aluminum products covered by sectoral tariffs, with a 50% tariff on any steel and aluminum content of these products plus the country rate on the non-steel and non-aluminum content.

 

Evercore ISI said in a research note the move covers more than 400 product codes representing over $200 billion in imports last year and estimates it will raise the overall effective tariff rate by around 1 percentage point.

 

The department is also adding imported parts for automotive exhaust systems and electrical steel needed for electric vehicles to the new tariffs as well as components for buses, air conditioners as well as appliances including refrigerators, freezers and dryers.

 

A group of foreign automakers had urged the department not to add the parts, saying the U.S. does not have the domestic capacity to handle current demand.  [snip]
 

The new tariffs take effect immediately and also cover compressors and pumps and the metal in imported cosmetics and other personal care packaging like aerosol cans...

 

... and their inflationary fallout

Almost a third of U.S. businesses have said in a survey that they’re likely to raise prices by the end of 2025 as they adjust to increasing costs and inflation, according to a new report.

The online lending marketplace LendingTree issued a report stating that more than 30 percent of businesses included in the company’s survey expect their prices to rise within the next six months. Roughly five percent said their prices would go down, and 65 percent estimated that they would remain the same.

The report comes as uncertainty grows regarding President Donald Trump’s tariff policy and continued tension stemming from inflation. 

LendingTree chief consumer finance analyst Matt Schulz stated in a press release that “Tariffs are likely playing a significant role in these concerns, but so is the overall sense of uncertainty that remains in the American economy.”

“There are so many unknowns that it’s nearly impossible to predict what the next few weeks will look like, much less six months from now,” he added. “However, this report makes it clear many businesses see continued rising prices ahead.”...

FAFO vox populi

... It’s a massive cosmic joke that people voted for Donald Trump to lower prices, but if the guy whose only significant legislative initiatives of his first term were 1)a massive upper-class tax cut and 2)taking healthcare away from tens of millions of people to pay for another massive upper-class tax cut was able to get treated like an economic populist when running for re-election, what else can you say but LOL nothing matters when our democracy is controlled by the random whims of people who consider Joe Rogan a deep thinker? 

And, scene.